“I know it’s such a strong word, but…” Zak Brown stands by his ‘overspend breach is cheating’ letter to the FIA
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Zak Brown at a press conference during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (IMAGO / PanoramiC)
Back in October, when the penalty for the Red Bull cost cap breach was still pending, McLaren CEO Zak Brown had written to the FIA, stating that the ‘overspend breach ‘ constitutes ‘cheating’, and demanded a severe penalty. Red Bull were found guilty of a ‘minor overspend breach’ of around 1.6 percent, but without an accounting error by the team, it would’ve been 0.37 percent.
They were penalized $7 million and had their aerodynamic development time for 2022 reduced by 10 percent (from 70 percent of Aston Martin’s own wind tunnel time, who are P7, to 63 percent). Brown’s letter caused quite a bit of controversy, especially with Red Bull, and Christian Horner had made his displeasure at the use of the word ‘cheating’ and the numerous allegations thrown at Red Bull by everyone.
However, even now, the McLaren boss stands by his letter. As per Motorsport.com, he said: “I stand by my letter. I think when you break the rules, whether it’s technical and financial, there are many different ways to characterise it. I know it’s such a strong word, but I don’t see any difference between breaking the financial cap versus having too low of a ride height, or whatever the case may be.”
He further added that as it’s a breach of the rules, regardless of the technicalities of it, in a ‘simplistic manner’, the word cheating is appropriate: “If it’s something within the sporting, financial, or technical regulations, a breach of the rules, I guess you could call it a couple of different things. Some people in a more simplistic manner would call it that.”
Zak Brown: Red Bull cost cap submission ‘doesn’t stack up’
In the early stages of the season, Red Bull, along with Mercedes and Ferrari were adamant in asking for an increase to the budget cap, citing inflation, and Christian Horner had even stated that teams might choose to miss races. More recently, he said that six teams might breach the budget cap in 2022. Zak Brown found it strange that they complained about being at the limit, but then stated that their original submission was comfortably under the cost cap – which eventually turned out to not be the case.
Obviously, if there is a cap, then to extract maximum performance, the team would want to spend as much as possible within the rules, while still leaving some margin: “The whole name of the game is to get as close to the cap as possible. And they were one of the teams saying they couldn’t get down to the cap.”
So, Brown didn’t understand how Red Bull could have been 4 million under the cost cap: “So then how were you four [million] under the cap? You wouldn’t want to be four under the cap, you want to be $400,000 under the cap, so I personally would have handled it differently. But I don’t think what they did was intentional. I know it’s kind of ‘sandwichgate’, but I think that’s downplaying what it was. So all that doesn’t quite stack up.”
Now, the matter is settled, and it’ll be interesting to see if Christian Horner’s predictions of six teams breaching the cost cap will (even come close) come true or not. Back in July, Brown had said that McLaren will also break the budget ceiling, even if he attributed it largely to massive inflation and increased transportation costs.
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)